N+1, at what point does it become ridiculous?

Just pulled my strive apart after 8 weeks hammering it in the Alps it needs a total refurb. Frame going to be away for a couple of weeks getting bearings done, have had a hankering for ages for a burly steel hard tail for winter.

Finger is itching over a black grape BFE, it’s only £320 but by the time I’ve put a headset in it and converted the rear hub to fit that’s going to be £400. But it would be so lovely! Everything else from the strive will bolt straight on.

There’s a road bike and a 29 hard tail in the garage along with countless other frames and spares already, I know the BFE is going to be too short, it’ll probably get a handful of rides before I have to get shot. I’m pretty sure I spend more time tinkering with bikes than riding them.

At what point does n+1 become too much?

That’s the whole point of n+1.

It never becomes ridiculous.

No such thing. I’m at 6 bikes for me in the house. thankfully my wife has 4 so i can get away with it.
But my only constraint at the moment is that of space.
Otherwise i want a fat bike and a cx

Luckily you can’t see the 8 frames as well.

Or the crates of spares

DAMN, that’s tidy !

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Wow! My hero.

If you haven’t ridden it in a year it’s time to get rid.

This is at about 5 bikes for me. One will get left in bits/never getting ridden.

Edit: Man cave jealousy above.

I want to pop round for a cup of tea MrO 🙂

BRAVO MRovershoot. That sir is dedication to the N+ brigade right there.

Mrovershoot I want your babies

That’s beyond a Man Cave. That’s Nirvana. Can’t you just stack them like everybody else

Hmph, my garage may be an absolute mess and I’ve had to move 2 bikes indoors so I can get at stuff, but at least I can take photos in the right orientation 😛

Oh its my escape place from all the trouble in my life

Though its connected 🙂

Ok DesB I’m sorry they were taken on my phone

MrOverShoot, could you let me know what that floor covering is? Standard Lino or something different. Looking for similar for my shed. Thanks.

Oh….all that and you’re using Windows!?……Fail

Buy the bfe, sort it all out then sell it to me at knockdown price. Sorted.

feed, it looks like this stuff below…I used to have some down. Really hard wearing. You can get thick and thin versions. The thick is worth the extra.

http://www.rubberco.co.uk/rubber-bathroom-flooring-c-63.html

I bought mine from here.

http://www.jaymart.co.uk/

HTH

MrOvershoot, you have just become the posterboy for much that is good about bicycle culture. Those are some beautiful facilities you have there. Well done!

No pictures of my cycle storage which is a complete mess, but I* currently have 13 cycles which are pretty much complete and rideable, though I haven’t ridden 2 or 3 of them in the past year. Currently on the lookout for a couple more on ebay.

*which are mine, 4 more belonging to kids and mrs aracer

At what point does n+1 become too much?

When this statement:

I’m pretty sure I spend more time tinkering with bikes than riding them.

Starts to ring true…

I’m holding at four bikes currently with a strict ‘one in, one out’ policy and general budgetary constraints, having previously peaked at seven.

Riding more than tinkering, just about, so four is the magic number for me, YMMV of course…

+1 with the shed envy (shenvy?)…

Bloody hell seavers its not that expensive!!

feed its like this funky-dots-blue[/url]

Now the firm I bought it from was in Durham but not that name!

it was available in 1-2-3 0r 4 meter widths in 0.25 meter increments.

Oh I only get to ride the bike once a week due to caring commitments but I can at least go and fettle every day
Even better I can make a friends little lad happy his bike is safe 🙂

Just for reference the old garage was at a point where every move resulted in a set of bars up your arse!!

So Ninkynonk off here gave me a hand to demolish it

Then this was built

And floored

After that I spent quite a lot of time fitting it out.

I do strictly 2 proper mtbs + 1 novelty MTB, +1 commuter, +1 Other. Which at the moment is a Bird T-Pro that I never ride. One in, one out. N+1 is the way and the light but I’m an accumulator so it can’t be allowed.

And every time I pat myself on the back for my restraint, someone says “Why have you got 5 bikes? That’s mental!”

It becomes ridiculous when you don’t actually remember how many bikes you actually have! I tried counting a few years ago and over the course of a week a few appeared that had slipped my mind. At the moment I couldn’t tell you (I should mention that this is everything from a frame to a full bike and everything in between).

At what point does n+1 become too much?

at +1 😈

am i really the first to mention n = S-1…?

where ‘S’ is the number of bikes that triggers divorce.

so the maximum number of bikes you should have, to maintain a happy relationship, is found with the equation: n = S-1.

I suppose it depends on what you like to ride. You could argue that a good trail HT would do everything you could ask of it, whether it’s a potter out on a Sunday morning, tooling about at a BMX track or a trip to wherever to ride up or down the local hills.

That said, me and my bf have got a couple of bikes each (HT and FS) and I’ve got a jump bike in bits that I’d like to build back up soon. I could do everything I do on my HT though, albeit slightly slower and a bit sketchier!

Three. Anything more than three bikes (all different) is ridiculous. But then a hybrid might be nice for pottering about on so maybe four, then there’s the BMX for being a bit rubbish on so that’d be five… oh… I dunno 😆 Maybe it only gets ridiculous if you can’t afford it or you’ve run out of space to store them all 😀

Also depends how many other hobbies you have and how much time, space and money they take up. I seem to have hobbies that needs lots of space (cycling, motorbikes, hiking, bikepacking, bushcraft, other outdoorsy stuff, tinkering in the garage etc)

Currently at 4 bikes – hardtail, rigid, cross, flat bar singlespeed road hack

I’m seriously struggling with space in my garage and shed

We currently have 11 bikes in our garage. Ok so two of them are too-small kids bikes and are going to be sold on as soon as I take pictures.. and hence four of them are not mind.

Earlier this year I set myself a limit of 20. A couple of weeks ago I had to dismantle a bike in order to keep to that limit. Once dismantled it’s just a pile of bits, right ? Not a bike any more.

(FWIW the newest is 2010 and most are scruffy retro bikes worth <£100, I’m not rich !)

I think Mr Overshoot is my hero today seeing that!! Serious bike cave envy!!

I just convinced hubby I needed N+1 by influencing him to buy N+1 as well, so that S-1 wouldnt reasonably apply 😀

Mr O, where do you live – could you please come round, I’ve got a… project I could do with some help with! 🙂

I have four, and to be honest that many does my head in what with space and maintenance requirements. But I don’t see how I can reduce it any further (first world problems!).

1. Commuter (gets left outside so can’t use one of the nicer bikes below)
2. Winter road
3. Summer road
4. MTB (hardtail)

two road (commuter and best)

two mtb (XC29er and 140mm FS/enduro)

about right I think, although I do sometimes fancy a DH bike…

I’m pretty sure I spend more time tinkering with bikes than riding them.

Unless the tinkering is a major part of what it’s all about for you, then at this point it’s gone too far.

Keeping a couple of bikes in great rideable condition and occasionally improving them is very doable. At a point, you’re just firefighting mechanical problems and cannibalising to keep things going. It’s time-consuming, expensive, and (again, unless the tinkering is an end in itself) sucks out some of the fun. My two penn’orth anyways.

And chapeau MrO on the staggering shed-works!

🙂

Currently 4 in a family stable of 8. MUST. GET. BIGGER. SHED.

I definitely have too many:

MTB:
El-Mariachi
Fatty

Play bikes:
Country Bikes Park BMX
Dialled Bikes Holeshot

Road bikes:
Falcon Strada 531 SS
Claud Butler super Dalesman tourer
Cannondale CAAD4 racer

Miss’s bike:
Giant BSO

In bits:
Chumba HX1 (for sale, make me a sensible offer, it’ll be significantly cheaper and lighter than a BFE)

Currently at 6.5 (the 0.5 is a cheap old BMX that came with the house I keep meaning to play at the skate park on).

The other 6 seem to get used, although I’ve been operating one in one out to avoid having anything that won’t get used recently. Got rid of singlespeed as it didn’t really do anything much differently to the hardcore HT, and I hadn’t used it much, plus new trails (or more importantly the spin to/from them from new house, and the fact that MTB has become my gentle ride after a week of commuting) didn’t suit a SS – got a reassuringly overweight full sus instead.

“nice” road bike was getting a bit old, so when bike for work came around I decided to get rid of that too.

3 road bikes consist of nice, commuter (guards and rack), and track bike.

I would quite like a DH bike (and the time to get a decent amount of use out of it), and a cyclo cross bike (and the time to go race it) but they would sit gathering dust mostly at the moment. A cargo bike with kiddie seats would be nice, but I have at kiddie trailer that does the job OK.

I think I have a tinkering addiction at least as strong as the riding, I need to find something else more constructive/lucrative as the cost is getting silly.

I have five and am now operating a one in one out policy. The wife has three bikes so she’s understanding.

Steel hardtail (my proper MTB)
Fat bike
Jump bike
Geared roadbike
Singlespeed roadbike (probably gets the most use of all).

I ride them all but am finding the maintenance can start to take too much of my time – I’m quite particular with bikes running well. Five is a good range.

I think my Fatty may have to be sold shortly to make space for something else.